I am Sophie, a Swedish woman by birth but English by adoption. I have a little mud hotel in the beautiful and ancient West African town of Djenne, Mali. WWW.HOTELDJENNEDJENNO.COM Because of unstable political
situation, tourism has ground to a halt. Hotel still open! But hotel staff mainly working in Bogolan studio now: www.malimali.org check out our fab online shop!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

WAITING FOR THE SUN.The midnight sun that is. The time is 22.30 at Abisko mountain station in Lapland, Sweden. The view is of Torne Trask. The gods have smiled on us and it looks as if we will see the midnight sun. The sky is quite clear. I have travelled nothwards for 20 hours to reach this outpost at latitude North 68.2, 250 km to the north of the Polar Circle. We are close to the Norwegian border, and to the port of Narvik. This is a wild, magnificent land. It is BIG Country. There are only some places that qualify for BIG country-it needs to produce a sensory disturbance, to do the opposite to a Bonsai display which makes one feel like Gulliver. Another place which qualifies for BIG country on is the view from the top of the Bandiagara Escarpment in the Dogon Country of Mali, when all of West Africa seemingly spreads out before one.Tomorrow I will start my journey south again, to the inhabited parts of this my country, to Amsterdam and Birgit, to London and finally to Mali again.but before that, I will post a picture of the midnight sun at Abisko...